We had bigger plans for today than we achieved. The plan was to drive to Dijon, arrive around 2 pm when the office for the campground reopened after lunch. Check in and re-visit a town we first visited on our very first trip to France.
What happened is we were so relaxed thinking we had plenty of time in the morning that we were a little tardy leaving. We needed gas and there was a big Carrefour that was too tempting to pass. The Carrefour was larger than most grocery stores in the US with a lot of interesting things to look at. We didn’t buy much but somehow spent over an hour wandering around.
When we finally got going we ran into the word I fear most in French-“Deviation”. It means detour. This detour sent us on a 20 kilometer drive through the hills around Issoires on narrow country lanes. Google then decided to send us into a little village and all my instincts told me to ignore it and stay on the bigger road we were on.
My instincts were right – about halfway through the village google told me to make a sharp left turn that was barely possible as there were two stone buildings right to the edge of the lane. François would fit once I made the turn, the question was I short enough to make the turn. After much backing and froing and almost hitting one of the walls someone from the village came over and suggested I keep going straight for 200 meters and then turn left. I thanked her and sure enough 200 meters later there was a much easier left turn that led us right back to the road we were on when we “self-deviated” into the village.
The rest of the day was fine though Dijon was a bit further than I thought and it took us a while to get there. About two kilometers from the end of the drive we ran into another “deviation”, the only thing worst than a “deviation” in the country is one in a city. However, this time we were lucky, though the road for the deviation was narrower than I would have liked we made it through ok.
By the time we arrived at the campground it was 3:45, cold, and raining. So instead of heading into town we just laid low. There are no pictures because the drive today was not photogenic, and neither was the weather.